Leaving Kangai--We Choose a Short Cut--Much Goitre in the Mountains--A Deserted Village--The Jericho Road--We are Attacked by Robbers--A Struggle in the Inn Yard--Odds too great--Our Attendants are Seized and Carried Off--The Kind Inn-Keeper--Inopportune Patients--A Race for Life--A City of Refuge--A Beautiful Custom--Safe at Last--The Magistrate Turns Out to be an Old Friend--The Charge to the Hunters. Our next stopping place of importance was the town of Kangai. This was a walled city of between ten and twenty thousand inhabitants in the northern part of the province of Pyeng An Do. Being in the center of a rather turbulent and independent community, at least at that time--and when were mountaineers not so?--and quite near the Chinese border, its governor was invested with almost provincial authority, had a large number of soldiers always under arms, and surrounded himself with the greatest possible show of power and state, having a numerous and obsequious body-guard, a gun fired whenever he left his office, and a great retinue of menials and officials who constantly attended him. He told us that all this was necessary to overawe the people and establish his prestige and dignity. He was a relative of the queen, and I had met him at the palace. As we approached the city and about three miles outside of it, we saw in the distance a little company of soldiers with flying banners and sounding trumpets, awaiting us apparently at the foot of a hill. What this might portend we were at a loss to guess. It might mean fetters and warder for intrusive foreigners, it might mean an order to return, it might mean our immediate extinction, but so kind had been our reception everywhere, barring sightseers, that we did not entertain any serious misgivings, although greatly puzzled as to what the demonstration could possibly signify. However, we marched right up, as if this martial array concerned us not in the least. As soon as we came within saluting distance the leader of the little company made us the most profound obeisance and announced that he had been sent to escort us to the city. So we proceeded with this rather cumbersome addition to our modest suite, and not only this, for small boys are the same all the world over, and a motley throng of them, attracted both by the soldiers and the circus (or, shall we say, the menagerie?), closed in around us. A mile farther on a second attachment of military, with its inevitable corps of small boys, was awaiting us, and on we went, the hubbub ever increasing, drums beating, trumpets sounding, flags flying, wooden shoes clattering over the stones, louder, it seemed to me, than all the rest, as I cowered in the shelter of my closely curtained chair. [Illustration: PRINCE YI CHAI SOON, COUSIN OF KING.] [Illustration: HIGH KOREAN OFFICIAL, KIM YAN SIK. PAGE 23]